Because of the NFL’s adherence to the Rooney Rule, the Jets GM search must satisfy their requirement to interview a minority candidate for the open general manger position and Marc Ross would be the Jets first candidate to fit the requirement. Until we reported our news, no one seemed to know when the Giants front office executive Marc Ross would interview or had interviewed, but shortly after our report, news spread that there was no deal in place for Gamble and Ross’s interview wasn’t until Monday.

Coincidence?

Tom Gamble might well have been still in the process of interviewing but that doesn’t mean he’s not the shoo-in for the job. The deal points for Gamble are done and at this point, nothing is going to happen between now and the Ross interviews, because the Jets won’t want to subject themselves to non-compliance of the Rooney Rule. In the absence of other proof, we’re standing on our story that Gamble will be the next GM for the Jets.

Even without concrete evidence going into the interviews Tom Gamble has been and remains the Jets top choice for their next GM. Gamble is (1) widely acknowledged as the “glue guy” in the Niners organization and (2) has done a great job in assisting Trent Baalke assemble a talented and now winning roster using the draft as their key means of talent acquisition. The Niners team (3) has a blueprint similar to that Rex Ryan would want as the head coach and (4) Ryan and Gamble have some shared history from the times their fathers worked together in Philadelphia.

I won’t get into more details on why we know this is happening, but the Jets took steps at the time of the report that indicated they are extremely serious about hiring Gamble.